Alone
by BlueBohemian
Summary: Meat and Khashoggi one shot. Khashoggi does some more thinking.


**AN: As with The Reason, this was initially posted as a song fic (Alone, by Heart), and has been reposted to remove the lyrics. Characters belong to Queen and Ben Elton, not me. **

Commander Khashoggi lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. Somewhere down the corridor outside his room the metronome-like clock ticked. Elsewhere, the faint hum and laughter of conversation echoed around his mind. Though relatively early, it was dark, and he had retired to his room under the guise of an early night. Though centred on one specific person, his thoughts were muddled, enough to give him a headache. Would she come to him, or would she not?

No one but the two concerned knew he had had plans for that night; but, with an hour to go she had pushed a scrap of paper through the gap underneath his door. _Ali, _the looped, barely legible scrawl read, _I don't feel that great, so would you mind if I take a rain check on tonight. Sorry._ And that was it, no signature, nothing. He had tried to call her, but either the intercom wasn't working, or she just wasn't bothering to answer. After several unsuccessful attempts, he had even gone to knock on her door, but the usual chink of light beneath the door was absent, and his knocks were met with stony silence.

So he had returned, brushing off requests from those he passed in the corridor to join them. Now, he wished he had gone to join them, at least for a short time. But, had he done that, he knew he would have felt fraudulent; it wasn't where he wanted to be, and he wasn't one who could easily hide that. No, it was better for all that he remained where he was. The monotony of the clock tick was momentarily broken as the clock chimed the half hour. 9.30. Two and a half hours had passed since he had read the note, two hours since he had gone to her door, and half an hour since he had returned to his room. An hour and a half he had waited for her, and had heard nothing. He sighed and rolled over, fervently trying to block out the sounds that filtered down the hall. He was sure that had their plans been kept, the evening would have been over by now; time always dragged when he was alone.

_'Gaz! Put me down!'_ Scaramouche's amused shriek pierced him, and he winced, listening to the sound of her laughter, and the mumbled reply from the Dreamer. Though it was a warm night, the Commander shivered, and unlike most of the Bohemians, he presumed, he slept clothed. This night was no different to any other night; before the fall of Globalsoft he had lived alone, and much like Scaramouche had never had a friend before. Even as a child he had been ostracised for having a silly name and a powerful family. Acceptance was something the Commander had never really experienced, and he saw no reason why it should change now. He was still the same person, he and his views hadn't changed, and it hadn't changed that no one bothered to ask him them.

Much like Galileo and Scaramouche in their days at the VirtualHigh, Khashoggi had been the proverbial loner. Meat Loaf was the first person who had truly got under his skin, and it unnerved him. Before he had met her, being alone hadn't bothered him; it was the norm, but now he had experienced acceptance, albeit only slightly, and was reluctant to let it slide. He had always heard that opposites attract; north and south magnetic charges, the buttered side of toast and the floor, Galileo and Scaramouche. The Commander and the Rebel. Meat and Khashoggi. Even if it wasn't reciprocated, which he was sure was the case, Khashoggi was drawn to her. Meat Loaf was his polar opposite; while shunned by the GaGa world, she had been easily accepted by the Bohemians, welcomed, even. She was very much, 'one of them', the ultimate Bohemian. Loved and popular, she was always in the middle of the crowd, always being sought out. It seemed to him that the Bohemians were purposefully keeping him from her, and her from him.

The Commander loved her; she was everything he was not, and, tonight excepted, she appeared to like him, at least platonically. He had watched for months from a distance, gradually building his courage to talk to her since his initial apology. She had appeared to accept it, and a friendship of sorts, a routine, had been established between the two of them. They would sit together at the bar, long into the night, talking about anything and nothing. She even appeared to like his company, and he appreciated hers. On the rare occasions she hadn't shown up, he had felt lost, and hadn't quite known how to react. Was it a slight against him? Or was it merely because she had no obligation to be there, at the usual time, and had had a better offer of entertainment for the evening? Or had she just not felt like it? He didn't know.

He had never told her how he felt, and had never wanted to admit it, even to himself; she was too good for him, they were too different, he was too much older than her, he didn't deserve her, and she wouldn't want him. The reasons for doing nothing that he had come up with were numerous, some held a grain of truth, and others were merely excuses. He turned again, wishing he didn't care quite so much, repeatedly telling himself that Meat wasn't the type to stand him up without a valid reason, but he couldn't remove the nagging doubt that she had never intended to see him.

The clock chimed the hour. Meat Loaf stared at the ceiling, exactly as she had done for the past three hours. She felt guilty for leaving the note, but couldn't face seeing him, not tonight. She saw him frequently during the day, how could she not, when they lived in such close proximity? But, this would have been the first time they had arranged to go out, even if it was just as friends. She had long accepted his reasoning, perhaps even forgiven him for Brit's death. Lord knew he'd been sincere enough in his apology, but something had stopped her from seeing him. She didn't know why; she wasn't used to being alone, and had heard him knocking at her door, and waiting outside it, calling her name. Then, she had heard him get up and leave. She didn't blame him; why should he wait for her all night long, when she had been the one to let him down? She knew she should have stopped him, told him that she had changed her mind, but hadn't had the courage. If she admitted it, it was guilt that had stopped her asking him to stay; guilt at the thought of the betrayal of Brit's memory, guilt that she was taking advantage of him, guilt that she was doing it for the wrong reasons; doing it purely because she didn't want to be alone.


End file.
